I wanna' make a movie!

[Novabrain]

Yeah, that's another place where we could take MMF2 a bit father.

Flash can do it, but MMF2 has so much over Flash for the general population that doing in in MMF2 could be much easier, faster, and even better.

The problem is that Flash is time-based and if you have used it you know what I mean. It uses a time-line that is rather common in many animation/movie-style programs.

There is much to sort out here and I have talked about it a lot over time. I am not sure about how, (but I have many ideas) but I am pretty clear about why.

The old time-line in MMF was better left scrapped in MMF2. That leaves us with a clean slate in which we can begin to move towards a new and ultimate Flash-killer.

If you want to make a movie, (or what I like to call, Cartoovie) in MMf2, you really do have a lot of events and timing problems in your future, don't you? Well, I think that is because MMF was not originally designed to do that and Yves and Francois didn't have that in mind when when the early versions were created.

The Presentation Movement was a nice move in this direction, but it is not near the solution we really need.

I thing Cartoovie's (move and cartoon combined) are so close and possible that they tantalize me. Like every solution that MMF has provided to so many people around the World, it is only a matter of ideas, brainstorming, and putting it all together.

Synopsis:

You want to make a Cartoovie. You want to base what happens on recordable animations, movements, etc. You want to synchronize that all with sound or video. Then, you want be able to record, play, rewind, fast forward, pause, save, load, all of that.

So, yes, we want a dynamic, runtime time line with boxes that can somehow be related to events in MMF2. We want better control and recording of backgrounds and complex actors with events. We want to be able to manipulate a group of objects that might be a complex character without too much hassle. So, if you had a person with body parts that animate and you wanted to put it together, (head, eyes, mouth, neck, body, hands, etc) and run it and adjust the mouth movements to the soundtrack, and move the hands, etc., how would you do that easily?

Along with the characters in your Cartoovie, you have backgrounds, various objects, weather, and special effects that would include both sound and graphics.

So, I didn't get technical there, like I used to do. I want to just put this idea out in its basic form for potential solutions.

If we can do this, I see it as a major step, no matter how it is accomplished.

Let's see if we can get the Cartoovie project off the ground conceptually. I feel it CAN be done. I see it as phenomenal to users and as a competition with Flash. We all know that MMF2 is better and only misses a few features that could send it over the top and that would make many Flash users convert once they see what we come up with along with Sphax's vectors, and such.

Your thoughts, ideas, replies?

P.S. I really want this one bad. I have wanted it for years. I think once we get something going and people see it in action, it will be like physics is turning out to be. Just turn on your vision and see it.

[vortex2]

As an MMF user turned professional flash developer (I currently use Flash CS3 Professional for work..) I feel I can shed some light on this issue. I have also created cartoons in MMF/MMF2 before.

The first thing is that Flash is designed to be an animation and art package more then it is designed to be a package for making games. The vector based nature of Flash was created to allow low bandwidth sizes and so this makes it appealing for internet based cartoons.

In order for MMF 2 to be competitive it needs a decent timeline with keyframe control... It also needs to be able to deliver content in a small file size and it needs strong vector support (not in an extension but BUILT IN).

The other thing MMF 2 would need is complete cross platform ability with both PC and MAC. I personally can not use MMF 2 for any of my work because the company I work for requires the games to work on both PC and MAC.

Basically the changes required to make MMF 2 a decent animation package would not be acheivable just through extensions but through major changes to MMF 2 itself.

Reasons I use Flash CS3 Professional:

A) Vectors are clean and they have a small file size
B) Flash CS3 can build mac and windows projector files
C) Flash is avaliable on a large number of machines

Reasons I dislike Flash at times:

A) Slow as hell runtime
B) Intense security restrictions


Here is what I would like in a cartoon program:

A) Full camera controls
B) 2D bone system
C) Full physics system
D) Ability to export to various movie formats like .Mov
E) Full featured timeline editor with tweening and keyframes
F) Many different effects like blurs

[Novabrain]

Thanks! Your ideas are right behind my cause. I am glad to know that somebody shares my concerns and to see that they can be more clearly expressed and outlined with the intent of bringing them into focus for a potential review.

Considering your experience with Flash, those are great points you bring into the picture as we solve this puzzle. And we will solve it, I think.

While cross-platform is not as important to me as it is to you, we do have the Java runtime to consider in MMF2's future. I don't know how it would play into this scenario, but I would rather worry about that as the last part of the equation.

Otherwise, your alphabetized list is a good way to look at it. I might have one of my own soon to come that can be compared to it.

[vortex2]

Thanks . Anything can be solved with enough work, innovation, and time.

The greatest hurdle I found while making MMF 2 cartoons was the timing. It takes a great many (complex) events to achieve what is basically key frame level control.

What we need is a fusion of both events/logic with the ability to use keyframes for timing.

Camera controls would allow for zooming in and out of the screen, following the character slowly, shaking camera, ect...

Imagine a pie is hurled towards the screen, the camera shakes and becomes blurred out, you can faintly see a cloth and all of a sudden the camera is clear again.

I can kind of envision having "Actors" controlled by "Stage directions" (Logical events like walk there, say something, ect)... And there would be editors for making actors like the animation editor but more rigid so that each actor has the same set of animations.. have features for helping setup walk cycles, lip synching, ect.

Of course you will need good stuff to compete with Toon Boom

[LIJI]

MMF2 misses two of the most important editors when it comes to making movies:
-The Play-through editor (It's VERY useful for timing stuff.) (KNP-MMF1.5).
-The Timeline editor (MMF1.5 and I think CNC too)

[Novabrain]

Vortex, yes, the timing issue is probably the first place to start. Once there was a way to set events in a popup, runtime time-line, the rest would follow.

3EE's Modifier object had a simple recording feature for object's connected to it. Although I am wondering if the new Record Demo and saving of frame position might play into this. Either way, the second part of the package is to have a transport, (VCR-style) and record selected objects with the ability to synchronize it tightly in time, or better yet, a soundtrack.

LIJI: Those were dropped because they were not used much, according to users. I was for that because I felt that we needed something better.

[LIJI]

Well yes, but if MMF2 wants to be better at making movies, it must have these too back.

[Novabrain]

If a dev here ever has some time, it would be nice to have a simple start.

The best we could do right off the bat is have a popup, (see Jack's INI++ dialog) that works in realtime. It would scroll a stream of check boxes and have a VCR transport underneath it. At miminal, it would record a click in a box and allow you to use that as a reference condition for actions you want to perform at that point.

From there, with a working, visual example, we might be able to work out the rest of the details, step-by-step. I have a feeling that the Array Standard might even fit in here because, hey, isn't it all about arrays?